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Draco (Texas, United States) (search for this): entry bankruptcy-laws-past-and-present
side of the grave. It calls to mind that humanitarian provision of the Mosaic law which commanded a release of debtors every seventh year. For more than twenty-five centuries the law-makers of the world have been legislating on bankruptcy. Draco, the pioneer, made it, with laziness and murder, punishable by death. Quite naturally there followed an age of the absconding debtor. Solon, not wishing to depopulate Athens, mollified these ancient blue laws, and even abolished enslavement for debt; but the bankrupt and the bankrupt's heirs forfeited their rights of citizenship. The noble Roman and his Twelve Tables were more draconic than Draco. Gibbon tells us that: At the expiration of sixty days the debt was discharged by the loss of liberty or life; the insolvent debtor was either put to death, or sold in foreign slavery beyond the Tiber: but if several creditors were alike obstinate and unrelenting, they might legally dismember his body, and satiate their revenge by t
United States (United States) (search for this): entry bankruptcy-laws-past-and-present
olvent debtor acts have been passed in England. In the United States the statute of 1898 is the fourth of a series of nationtions on the granting of a discharge. Turning to the United States, we find that: 1. The statute of 1800 was copied froprinciples and matters of detail. Nowhere, save in the United States, where local insolvency laws have temporarily filled thg to such a law every description of persons within the United States would be constitutional. Yet our law of 1841 extended to the Abbey. What are acts of bankruptcy? In the United States this has been the kernel of the controversy. Our laws ufficient in amount to pay his debts. In short, in the United States hereafter, he who has uncontrovertible property in plen. Beginning in 1849, in England, and in 1841, in the United States, preferences have been interdicted by law. The English negligent creditors and prevents much fraud. In the United States the administration of bankruptcy laws has too often bee
Blackstone (Massachusetts, United States) (search for this): entry bankruptcy-laws-past-and-present
perty which he may afterwards acquire. Each statute has sought the common goal by different ways, but always by or near definite landmarks. It will assist to a better understanding of the law of 1898, if we note these landmarks. 1. Who may become a bankrupt? 2. What are acts of bankruptcy? 3. What is a preference? 4. When may a discharge be refused? 5. What is the procedure which will prove least expensive and most expeditious? This classification includes two elements born since Blackstone's time. Who May become a bankrupt? The limitation to traders has already been mentioned. Indeed, so late as 1817, in this country, Judge Livingston doubted whether an act of Congress subjecting to such a law every description of persons within the United States would be constitutional. Yet our law of 1841 extended the meaning of the term trader so that, in involuntary bankruptcies, it included bankers, brokers, factors, underwriters and marine insurers. All classes of persons coul
England (United Kingdom) (search for this): entry bankruptcy-laws-past-and-present
laws. 6. The statute of 1869 introduced in England the now well-understood principle of fraudule classes of persons could become bankrupts in England after 1861; and the like broad rule received question in widely different ways. Not so in England. That original act of bankruptcy, abscondingin our laws. The present bankruptcy law of England gives eight acts of bankruptcy, three predicaf two centuries ago. Beginning in 1849, in England, and in 1841, in the United States, preferencefeat or delay creditors. The present law of England provides that, to constitute a preference, it prevail in France. Since 1832 discharges in England have been in the discretion of the court, subusual method, and yet that the present law of England is far and away the most successful and the fWhile the list of objections to discharges in England is on the increase, here it is growing smalleas been directed to details of procedure. In England, for more than half a century, the lines were[2 more...]
France (France) (search for this): entry bankruptcy-laws-past-and-present
iples and matters of detail. Nowhere, save in the United States, where local insolvency laws have temporarily filled the gap, has the necessity of such legislation been denied. All civilized and many semi-civilized countries enforce such laws. France has not been without a bankruptcy law for 400 years, nor England for a period nearly as long. It is settled, too, that such laws should have three purposes: 1. The surrender of the debtor's estate without preferences; 2. Its cheap and expeditit he might get a fresh start; a provision which also appears in our bankruptcy law of 1800. Until a comparatively recent period, the discharge was of no value unless signed by a specified number of creditors, which rule seems still to prevail in France. Since 1832 discharges in England have been in the discretion of the court, subject to some rather drastic limitations of a punitive character. This discretion has been abused; and yet the present English law permits discharges to be refused fo
Scotland (United Kingdom) (search for this): entry bankruptcy-laws-past-and-present
laim that it will accomplish all that it was intended to do by the mere threat of possible procedure. Therein is its chief merit to the business world. Experience will prove whether it is a boon or bane. But our hysterical Congressmen shall be able now to sleep oa nights; for under this law there can be by the rich no grinding the face of the poor. What is a preference? This is a comparatively recent development of the law of bankruptcy. The earliest regulation is that of 1690, in Scotland, which annulled preferences made within two months of bankruptcy. The common law permitted preferences, and debts in favor of wives and female relatives in general were a refuge frequently found by the failing debtor. It is not likely that the chattel mortgage method of preference was then understood; that is the product of our higher civilization. But, for centuries, scandals without number and frauds on creditors by the multitude have flowed from the too gentle policy of the law in thi
John Howard (search for this): entry bankruptcy-laws-past-and-present
nvoluntary bankruptcy, it has been that our laws might be just rather than severe, and expressive of the principle that a score of rascals had better go unpunished rather than that one honest man should suffer oppression. This is the spirit of the age. Nearly a century and a half ago Blackstone declared that the bankruptcy laws of his time were founded on principles of humanity as well as justice. Modern jurists would not now assure us that such was the case: else to what purpose did John Howard live, or how came it that Dickens moved a sympathetic world with his story of Little Dorrit and the debt-deadened prisoners of Marshalsea. Now, even the day seems passing when, in the words of the gentle Autocrat. The ghostly dun shall worry his sleep, And constables cluster around him; And he shall creep from the wood-hole deep When their spectre eyes have found him. Old things are passing away. Sympathy sits where sternness sat. The nimble debtor is no longer part of a traged
William Nelson (search for this): entry bankruptcy-laws-past-and-present
ive acts of bankruptcy, two of them involving fraud on the part of the bankrupt (fraudulent conveyances and voluntary preferences), one constructive fraud, and two which are expressed by the paradox that by them a debtor may go into involuntary bankruptcy voluntarily. The Torrey bill enumerated nine acts of bankruptcy, going further even than the English law and including default for thirty days in the payment of commercial paper, a rule which would have upset our entire credit system. The Nelson bill went to the other extreme and made fraudulent transfers and voluntary preferences while insolvent the only acts of bankruptcy. The law as passed is perhaps a fair compromise, though in extreme cases we may wish for the more complete and farreaching definition of the English statute. But, whatever the effect, lawyers and laymen alike will quickly understand that insolvency has a new meaning. The English statute defines it as inability on the debtor's part to pay from his own moneys
Edward Gibbon (search for this): entry bankruptcy-laws-past-and-present
enty-five centuries the law-makers of the world have been legislating on bankruptcy. Draco, the pioneer, made it, with laziness and murder, punishable by death. Quite naturally there followed an age of the absconding debtor. Solon, not wishing to depopulate Athens, mollified these ancient blue laws, and even abolished enslavement for debt; but the bankrupt and the bankrupt's heirs forfeited their rights of citizenship. The noble Roman and his Twelve Tables were more draconic than Draco. Gibbon tells us that: At the expiration of sixty days the debt was discharged by the loss of liberty or life; the insolvent debtor was either put to death, or sold in foreign slavery beyond the Tiber: but if several creditors were alike obstinate and unrelenting, they might legally dismember his body, and satiate their revenge by this horrid partition. In the time of Caesar Roman jurisprudence and civilization had so developed that the debtor, by the famous cessio bonorum, might at least
Timon (search for this): entry bankruptcy-laws-past-and-present
uickly feel the effects of the restored energy of the tens of thousands who have gone down in recent wrecks. So far the law is expressive, not only of our humanity, but of our commercial common-sense. The honest bankrupt is needed back in the ranks of business. There are, however. others who will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. And there are yet others who, in spirit, if not in deed, would in these times of prejudice and passion listen willingly to ancient Timon's exhortation to his brother debtors within the walls of Athens: Bankrupts, hold fast; Rather than render back, out with your knives, And cut your thrusters' throats. We might have gone further and enacted a law which would prove valuable in times of prosperity, as well as in times of depression. Just now the law-giver can well be a philanthropist. Year in and year out he must be a policeman, too. Our law of 1898 is philanthropic to a degree; but as a discourager of commercial dish
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